Unhappily Ever After
March 21, 2017 2:45 PM Subscribe
"New York animation artist Jeff Hong has created less-than-rosy portrayals of Disney characters as they might fare in today’s world. They are not cheery images, but they are poignant in their depictions of very real challenges, from animal testing and ocean pollution to drug addiction and teen suicide."
Jesus Christ, I was not prepared for that.
posted by R.F.Simpson at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by R.F.Simpson at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
To be poignant, it had to be something new. The whole "Disney character as/in [something you wouldn't see in their movie]" has been so overused over the years it has lost any effect whatsoever.
posted by lmfsilva at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2017 [30 favorites]
posted by lmfsilva at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2017 [30 favorites]
I think these would be a lot more effective if it didn't seem like he just cut and pasted the character into an unrelated picture. Doesn't seem very skillfully done. Is it me or do some of these just look straight up blurry?
posted by tunewell at 3:04 PM on March 21, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by tunewell at 3:04 PM on March 21, 2017 [10 favorites]
nothing has been or ever will be as on-the-nose as this. this is a breakthrough and triumph of on-the-nosedness that will never be surpassed.
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:05 PM on March 21, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:05 PM on March 21, 2017 [11 favorites]
I usually don't come in just to dunk on a link, but dang this is the most trite thing.
posted by Ferreous at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2017 [10 favorites]
I don't know- Sebastian in the lobster trap made me giggle a bit.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:15 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:15 PM on March 21, 2017
It is 2017. Our entire reality is a heavyhanded satire dystopia. This somehow still comes across as heavyhanded and unnecessary.
posted by schmod at 3:19 PM on March 21, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by schmod at 3:19 PM on March 21, 2017 [11 favorites]
A lot of the reason I posted was the laughter it brought me.
posted by brokeaspoke at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by brokeaspoke at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
Also, this originally came out three or four years ago.
posted by Apocryphon at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by Apocryphon at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2017
Joy. Let's make all the characters of colour homeless. That's sticking it to the man.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by MartinWisse at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
This one might have worked better if Secret of NIMH wasn't a successsful movie from years before the movie they're riffing on.
posted by radwolf76 at 3:25 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by radwolf76 at 3:25 PM on March 21, 2017
Because we need more ways to make ourselves miserable.
posted by nfalkner at 3:46 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by nfalkner at 3:46 PM on March 21, 2017
The tarzan one was kinda nice though.
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 4:20 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 4:20 PM on March 21, 2017
This is some kind of meta-satire of unsophisticated pop-culture reimaginings, right? I mean, the utterly artless shoop of Remy the rat is proof that this is not a serious project.
posted by radicalawyer at 4:29 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by radicalawyer at 4:29 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
Also, I don't see why the Pocahontas and Kocoum one is supposed to be so depressing. I mean, their people probably own that casino.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:54 PM on March 21, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:54 PM on March 21, 2017 [10 favorites]
Has Prince Philip drugged Aurora at the bar, or is it that she realises she doesn't have to go with him...? I didn't get that one.
(And actually, the one with Violet hit a little too close to home. I remember when I was in that place. At about that age, too.)
posted by droplet at 5:04 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
(And actually, the one with Violet hit a little too close to home. I remember when I was in that place. At about that age, too.)
posted by droplet at 5:04 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Tarzan would obviously be a latter-day Spider-Man if he lived in a modern city.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:24 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by Apocryphon at 5:24 PM on March 21, 2017
Huh, there's one I've seen of Peter Pan smoking crack that didn't make the cut.
posted by infinitewindow at 5:56 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by infinitewindow at 5:56 PM on March 21, 2017
Wally Wood did it more bitingly and first. Link definitely NSFW and quite offensive on many levels.
posted by Mr.Krotpong at 6:21 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr.Krotpong at 6:21 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
The Pooh one hurt.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:51 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:51 PM on March 21, 2017
I like the idea but yeah this has been done before and it looks sorta like just amateur photoshop. There doesn't seem to be a style holding them together .
posted by freecellwizard at 6:58 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by freecellwizard at 6:58 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
Top of the line 11th grade sarcasm.
posted by happyroach at 9:07 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by happyroach at 9:07 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
Wally Wood did it more bitingly and first. Link definitely NSFW and quite offensive on many levels.
I forgot all about this one! Thanks.
posted by brokeaspoke at 9:46 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
I forgot all about this one! Thanks.
posted by brokeaspoke at 9:46 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Some of these are great! Some of these are dumb.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:54 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by Going To Maine at 9:54 PM on March 21, 2017
At first all I could think was this has so been done before but the sleeping beauty and Alice in wonderland made me gasp.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:59 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:59 PM on March 21, 2017
I know this whole exercise in taking complex subjects and distilling them down into a nugget of moral superiority that is as simple and easy to understand as it is wrong is not new, but it feels like it's gotten more common over the last year of Trump, and I'm disappointed to see it on metafilter.
posted by Blasdelb at 2:07 AM on March 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Blasdelb at 2:07 AM on March 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
I feel required to leave the song versions of what happened to Disney princesses after their onscreen story ended here, too. Jon Cozart’s After Ever After and After Ever After 2. (Previously.)
posted by Martijn at 2:31 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Martijn at 2:31 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm actually surprised this is only 3 years old. It feels ancient.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:59 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:59 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Really makes you think.
Now I want shellfish.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:37 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Now I want shellfish.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:37 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm actually surprised this is only 3 years old. It feels ancient.
Like that saying that every generation thinks they invented sex, each generation also thinks they were the first to draw Disney characters doing nasty/inappropriate things.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:59 PM on March 22, 2017
Like that saying that every generation thinks they invented sex, each generation also thinks they were the first to draw Disney characters doing nasty/inappropriate things.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:59 PM on March 22, 2017
I Don’t Understand Social Issues Unless There Are Disney Princesses Involved
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:55 PM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:55 PM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
I Don’t Understand Social Issues Unless There Are Disney Princesses Involved
I don’t get this article. It’s like how I didn’t get why everyone got so angry that people were comparing the incoming administration to events in the Potterverse, or Lord of the Rings, or what have you. Which maybe you can put down to whiteness on my part or something - but if juxtaposing a popular fiction and reality helps people to better understand what’s going on, bully for them. If it works for you, great! Other people can get into their own meta-analyses about what it means that people need particular pop-cultural lenses or whatever, but I’m glad that they’re somewhere on the bandwagon. I mean, heck, remember when UNICEF bombed the smurfs? They aren’t real people, but that was certainly an effective campaign. We relate to abstractions, and that isn’t something to be sneezed at.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:36 PM on March 22, 2017
I don’t get this article. It’s like how I didn’t get why everyone got so angry that people were comparing the incoming administration to events in the Potterverse, or Lord of the Rings, or what have you. Which maybe you can put down to whiteness on my part or something - but if juxtaposing a popular fiction and reality helps people to better understand what’s going on, bully for them. If it works for you, great! Other people can get into their own meta-analyses about what it means that people need particular pop-cultural lenses or whatever, but I’m glad that they’re somewhere on the bandwagon. I mean, heck, remember when UNICEF bombed the smurfs? They aren’t real people, but that was certainly an effective campaign. We relate to abstractions, and that isn’t something to be sneezed at.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:36 PM on March 22, 2017
I actually enjoyed most of these. They gave me a good giggle. God, I hate Disney. Except for Lilo and Stitch, the only Disney movie I like. That was sad, although not quite accurate (after all, the big fear was that the family would be split up--Lilo would end up in the foster system being abused and neglected somewhere, and Stitch would be euthanized by animal control for fear of rabies).
I wonder what he'd do with Peter and the Wolf in post-Soviet Russia. (There is a full-length, captivating contemporary, non-Disney version, btw.)
posted by tully_monster at 9:44 AM on March 23, 2017
I wonder what he'd do with Peter and the Wolf in post-Soviet Russia. (There is a full-length, captivating contemporary, non-Disney version, btw.)
posted by tully_monster at 9:44 AM on March 23, 2017
It felt sort of ham-handed and obvious to me until I got to the one of Tarzan as haunted soul-swallowed commuter. Oof. Well played, though maybe that's my existential dread talking...
posted by SinAesthetic at 12:10 PM on March 23, 2017
posted by SinAesthetic at 12:10 PM on March 23, 2017
These remind me of the bootleg Disney-princesses-with-tattoos-and-piercings t-shirts for sale in every store in the Wisconsin Dells.
posted by nicepersonality at 12:54 PM on March 23, 2017
posted by nicepersonality at 12:54 PM on March 23, 2017
It’s like how I didn’t get why everyone got so angry that people were comparing the incoming administration to events in the Potterverse, or Lord of the Rings, or what have you.
People don't get angry at that, they mock it because it's sort of like the slacktivist white liberal equivalent to "basic." It's like, are you [the Potterfan poli-Tweeter] such a '90s kid that your entire political and cultural consciousness is informed only by best-sellers and summer blockbusters. So middlebrow! Such cringe! It's not a moral flaw, more like a coolness flaw. This is related to the internet leftist backlash against Hamilton.
The critique of basicness also works as sort of a covert class attack. Shaming those who make the pop cultural references for signaling safe, middle class, suburban tastes and in doing so trivializing the real-world situation they're supposed to be denouncing. Or for having the privilege to be able to flee into childlike escapism while others lack the ability to.
I'm not saying that the mocking is always deserved, but I think that's those are the angles they're arriving from.
It felt sort of ham-handed and obvious to me until I got to the one of Tarzan as haunted soul-swallowed commuter. Oof. Well played, though maybe that's my existential dread talking...
The funny thing is in the original Tarzan stories he ends up in London in a suit and drives and car and everything. But he was also like a rich heir so it's unlikely that he'd be commuting via the Tube.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:26 PM on March 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
People don't get angry at that, they mock it because it's sort of like the slacktivist white liberal equivalent to "basic." It's like, are you [the Potterfan poli-Tweeter] such a '90s kid that your entire political and cultural consciousness is informed only by best-sellers and summer blockbusters. So middlebrow! Such cringe! It's not a moral flaw, more like a coolness flaw. This is related to the internet leftist backlash against Hamilton.
The critique of basicness also works as sort of a covert class attack. Shaming those who make the pop cultural references for signaling safe, middle class, suburban tastes and in doing so trivializing the real-world situation they're supposed to be denouncing. Or for having the privilege to be able to flee into childlike escapism while others lack the ability to.
I'm not saying that the mocking is always deserved, but I think that's those are the angles they're arriving from.
It felt sort of ham-handed and obvious to me until I got to the one of Tarzan as haunted soul-swallowed commuter. Oof. Well played, though maybe that's my existential dread talking...
The funny thing is in the original Tarzan stories he ends up in London in a suit and drives and car and everything. But he was also like a rich heir so it's unlikely that he'd be commuting via the Tube.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:26 PM on March 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Shaming those who make the pop cultural references for signaling safe, middle class, suburban tastes and in doing so trivializing the real-world situation they're supposed to be denouncing. Or for having the privilege to be able to flee into childlike escapism while others lack the ability to.
Apocryphon, I've been trying to put my finger on what I hate, hate, hate about the current convergence of geek and pop culture and why I've mostly withdrawn from social media (except to post pictures of my travels on Instagram), and you've done it.
And yes, I find all that boring and "basic," and I'm not afraid to say so, despite the backlash. (Who knew that geek culture would ever become middlebrow?)
posted by tully_monster at 9:31 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
Apocryphon, I've been trying to put my finger on what I hate, hate, hate about the current convergence of geek and pop culture and why I've mostly withdrawn from social media (except to post pictures of my travels on Instagram), and you've done it.
And yes, I find all that boring and "basic," and I'm not afraid to say so, despite the backlash. (Who knew that geek culture would ever become middlebrow?)
posted by tully_monster at 9:31 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
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posted by brokeaspoke at 2:48 PM on March 21, 2017